POPULISTS (PEOPLE'S PARTY)

A dynamic third party of the 1890s, the People's
Party sharply challenged the period's
economic inequities and the unresponsiveness
of the two major political parties. Though
Populists, as adherents of the new party were
called, were also important in the South and
in the Rocky Mountain states, they were especially
numerous and influential in the Great
Plains.

Populist protest emerged amid an agricultural
depression that engulfed the Plains beginning
in the late 1880s. A boom spurred by
railroad development, town building, ready
credit, and good weather collapsed because of
drought, low crop prices, falling land values,
and onerous debt. To protect their fading interests,
distressed farmers demanded reforms,
ranging from state laws reducing interest rates
and regulating railroads to national laws providing
agricultural credits and promoting
monetary inflation. Increasing the money
supply through an expanded greenback currency
and unlimited silver coinage ("free silver")
was widely favored to reduce the burden
of debt and to increase farm prices.

To the farmers' dismay, the Republican
Party, which dominated state legislatures in the
region, rejected their reform proposals in favor
of untrammeled business development. Nor
could the Democratic Party–weak, conservative,
and focused on cultural issues–serve as a
vehicle for agrarian economic reform.

Mobilized by the Farmers Alliance and
other reform organizations, angry farmers
therefore created third parties throughout the
Plains states in 1890. South Dakota dissidents
moved first, forming the Independent Party
on June 7, 1890, but it was the formation of
the Kansas People's Party on June 12, 1890,
that provided the name eventually adopted
everywhere.

These initial campaigns achieved considerable
success. Led by crusading editors like
William Peffer of the Kansas Farmer and
Henry Loucks of the Dakota Ruralist and
spellbinding orators like Mary Elizabeth Lease
and "Sockless Jerry" Simpson of Kansas and
Omer Kem of Nebraska, Populists elected several
congressmen and senators and captured
control of the legislatures in Nebraska and
Kansas while gaining the balance of power in
others.

Kansas Populists then led in organizing a
national People's Party in 1891. The new party's
first national nominating convention met in
Omaha, Nebraska, on July 4, 1892. It adopted
the famous Omaha Platform, eloquently summarizing
the Populists' economic and political
reform goals, and nominated James Weaver of
Iowa for president. The Populists carried Kansas,
Idaho, and Nevada and garnered more
than a million popular votes, but the party met
little success in the South, where fraud, intimidation,
and racism disrupted their potential
constituency, or in the industrial East.

But Populists again achieved important victories
at the state level in the West, often by
cooperating or "fusing" with Democrats on a
common ticket. More Populists were elected to
Congress, and Kansas, Colorado, and Nebraska
elected Populist governors. Despite consistent
Republican opposition, Populists eventually
enacted important reforms in several states.
They passed laws regulating railroads, banks,
stockyards, and insurance companies, protecting
labor unions, and improving working conditions.
They were also largely responsible for
democratic political reforms such as women's
suffrage in Colorado and the initiative and referendum
in South Dakota.

But most Populist objectives required national,
not state, action. To achieve national
success, Weaver and other Populist leaders,
who had already fused with Democrats in
state elections, began pursuing a policy to arrange
in 1896 a national fusion based on the
issue of free silver.

Their strategy went awry, however, when
the Democratic Party nominated William Jennings
Bryan of Nebraska on a free silver platform.
Bryan had worked with Populists in Nebraska,
and the fusionists' political logic
dictated that the People's Party also nominate
him, creating a solid coalition for the silver
issue they had labored to promote. Other
Populists argued futilely that the party should
preserve its independence by adopting a comprehensive
reform platform and nominating a
Populist rather than being submerged in a
Democratic silver campaign.

Not only did Bryan's nomination produce
discord, but the fusion campaign tactics further
splintered the party and obscured its
identity. Subordinating the party and its principles
to the Democrats, moreover, brought
no reward, for Bryan was soundly defeated by
Republican William McKinley. Fusion state
tickets did triumph in Kansas, Nebraska, and
South Dakota, but these victories were dying
gasps, and the disappointing performances of
fusionist governors and legislatures further
disillusioned the rank and file. Populist candidates
lost almost everywhere in the 1898 elections,
and wrangling between party o.cials
and antifusion Populists split the national
party. The gradual return of prosperity further
undermined the Populists' appeal, and
Republican legislatures in the Plains states
provided the final blow by enacting antifusion
laws. Disintegrating, the People's Party soon
disappeared completely.